In the wake of the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the West Virginia Coal Association has been hitting the airwaves and taking to print to put the decision into perspective.

WVCA President Bill Raney released an op-ed this week that discusses the decision and refocuses the effort to pass HR 2018 in the U.S. Senate, which would end the EPA’s war on coal once and for all. Raney will also be a guest on WOWK-TV’s “DecisionMakers” this weekend where he will be discussing the same issue.

WVCA Vice President Jason Bostic will be on WV Radio’s WCHS 580 weekly radio show, “Business Matters” on Saturday morning discussing this decision and other EPA actions.

Excerpts from the op-ed and a news release issued on the decision have been picked up in various newspapers around the state and the region. And a new radio spot will begin airing next week on WV Radio Network channels discussing the decision and the need to pass HR 2018 in the Senate.

“This decision, while it is clearly important in and of itself, must be seen as reinforcing the need to pass HR 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011, and expanding on it to end this radicalized EPA’s assault on the mining industry – on ALL industry – to an end,” said Raney. “America needs jobs. We need to be creating new jobs and not destroying the ones we have in some myopic pursuit of a political agenda.”

The importance of the coal industry to the people of West Virginia was on display this week in a very clear way and in a forum most people would have found surprising. An online poll in the Charleston Gazette newspaper’s e-edition, saw 2/3rds of respondents agreeing with the U.S. District Court’s decision to overturn the EPA’s veto of the Spruce Mine.  The poll question has been active and on the web page for most of the week.

As of 2 p.m. on Friday, March 30, the results were:

Question:

Do you agree with the federal judge's decision to overturn EPA's veto of the Spruce Mine Permit?

1. Yes                  1788 votes / 62%
2. No                   1112 votes / 38%

The day after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released far-reaching new standards for power plants that could have a crippling effect on West Virginia’s economy, U.S. Representative Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), top Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, grilled EPA officials at a House hearing before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.

“Some time ago, it had long been my belief that the EPA could be a positive force in the permitting process for surface coal mining in West Virginia.  After years of battles in courtrooms that left coal miners and coal communities in a long, tenuous limbo, this EPA had an opportunity to help achieve a center point that would provide for both energy development and environmental preservation.  But it has utterly failed,” said Rahall.  “Instead, this EPA took an extra-legal approach, choosing to step over the bounds of the law to promote an ideological agenda and, in so doing, to push opposing parties even further from the balance we have all sought for so long.”

The Friends of Coal Soccer Complex at Trace Fork was officially dedicated on March 25. The dedication drew a large crowd and the two large fields were named in honor of past-WVCA Chairman and Pritchard Mining President Andrew Jordon and board member and Asset Management Principal Ralph Ballard.  Both men had worked tirelessly, making significant donations of time, money and effort into making the fields a reality.

From the very beginning, more than ten years ago, our members stepped up to provide the “heavy lifting” to make sure this vision became a magnificent asset to the Kanawha County area.  Initially, Ralph Ballard (Asset Management Group) marshaled equipment, operators and support for the extensive earth moving and grading work that had to be done to complete the tremendous complex of grass fields.  The second dimension of this complex was then undertaken with Andrew Jordon (Pritchard Mining) and his people in the development of the turf field. The facility was a collective effort through individual in-kind contributions by Asset Management, Pritchard Mining, Walker Machinery, Rish Equipment, Rudd Equipment and Maxum Petroleum.

It has been announced that the facility will be home to all of the University of Charleston’s Women’s Soccer home games and practices. In addition, the field has already been used by an estimated 800 kids between mid-January to the end of February. Organizers say the facility is quickly getting booked up! For example the month of August already has nearly 2,300 kids registered to use the complex.

Turnout for the dedication was excellent, with several hundred in attendance.

Just days after a U.S. District Court shot down an agency veto of the Spruce Mine, the EPA has doubled down on its war against coal with a new set of rules which will essentially cripple the nation’s remaining coal-fired power plants.

The rule, announced Tuesday, will likely derail plans for 15 new coal-fired power plants across 10 states. The proposal drew harsh criticism from industry, congressional Republicans and coal-state Democrats, while environmental groups praised EPA's move as a landmark action but also said the agency should have done more.